The facility was closed to the public on August 4th because three cats and one dog were showing unspecified signs of ringworm.

Samples were collected for testing, but they decided to euthanize the 4 animals.

"You’re kind of under the gun to decide what you want to do,” said their operations manager. I can certainly empathize. It’s not easy to deal with an outbreak. However, from my standpoint, if you feel like you’re under the gun in that kind of situation, you’re likely to make (or to have already made) mistakes. If you’re managing the situation well, getting advice and following standard practices, you may be stressed, exhausted, humbled and concerned, but you shouldn’t feel "under the gun." Maybe euthanasia was warranted here, but with a small number of infected animals, the ability to potentially isolate and treat them, and lots of information about how to manage ringworm to avoid further spread, it’s important to avoid a panic response that leads to premature euthanasia decisions.

The three cats that were euthanized apparently did not have ringworm, but the shelter is "certain" (not sure how) that the dog had ringworm. Sudden onset of skin lesions in dogs and cats at the same time is certainly suggestive of ringworm, and if the dog was truly infected, it’s hard to believe the cats were not (especially since cats are most often affected in ringworm outbreaks compared to dogs). So I wouldn’t be too quick to rule out ringworm in the cats. Ringworm culture can take a couple of weeks, so it’s not clear to me whether this interpretation is based on culture results or not.

"With the results being better than expected, the humane society will not have to move larger numbers of possibly infected animals to a different facility — the usual procedure in an outbreak." While I can’t say too much from a distance, I can say that moving animals to another facility is certainly not a typical outbreak response measure. It’s an effective outbreak propagation measure, since it can easily disseminate ringworm to other places, so it’s good to hear that they are not planning on moving animals. It’s much better to manage things well at one site than to have to manage things at multiple sites.

They state that "the situation now appears to be under control."Hopefully that’s true, but it’s way too early to say. You can’t declare an outbreak over a few days after you declare that it started. There hasn’t even been enough time for any animal or environmental ringworm culture results to come back. Closing, testing, treating all exposed animals and thorough cleaning and disinfecting of the environment can be a great start, but trying to say "we won" too early often leads to inadequate response and continuation of the outbreak.

"We’re keeping our fingers crossed and hoping that everything comes back negative so we can be open for business sometime next week" Again, I’m not involved and I’m working with sparse information, but this seems to be way too early to reopen the shelter. You need to make sure things are really under control before you get out of "outbreak mode" and before you can be "open for business" again. That’s especially true with a disease like ringworm that is highly transmissible and can be spread to people. Too often, a small outbreak is identified and declared over prematurely, only to be followed by a big mess in short order. Let’s hope that’s not the case here.

Image: Photo of a dermatophyte-positive culture specimen, which can take two weeks or longer to grow.

About This Blog

Worms & Germs Blog is an educational website coordinated by Drs. Scott Weese and Maureen Anderson of the Ontario Veterinary College’s Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses. The site was initially set up with the help of funding from City…

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The Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses offers information relating to zoonotic diseases (diseases transmitted from animals to people), including aspects of human and pet health, infection prevention and control, and vaccination. It is located at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada.